The Exhaustive Guide To Apple Tablet Rumours

The Apple tablet is almost here. We hear. Actually, we're hearing a whole lot lately. With this exhaustive guide to every tablet rumour, we've got the clearest picture of the Apple tablet yet.

The Latest News And Rumours

26/1/2010: Talking to game devs, Kotaku found out that one tablet game from EA "allows gamers to move a map with one hand and do the 'mouse work' with the other, using a combination of multitouch and 'gestures.'"

26/1/2010: McGraw-Hill's CEO just confirmed on CNBC that Apple's announcing the tablet tomorrow and that it'll run an iPhone-style OS, and gosh darn it, it's "terrific".

26/1/2010: The New York Times reports a few worthy bits: The tablet will have 3G, and iPhone apps will be compatible with the tablet. Presuming that's true, the questions now turn to the carrier(s) and how those iPhone apps will work on the tablet.

25/1/2010: The LA Times reports that the NY Times has been cooped up in Cupertino for the last few weeks developing a version of its paper for the tablet. The article also has a quote from a Conde Nast press release in which the publishing giant just comes out and says it: they will develop "more content for the iPhone and the anticipated tablet from Apple".

25/1/2010: Techcrunch heard through the grape vine that Steve Jobs said of the tablet, "This will be the most important thing I've ever done."

22/1/2010: Fox News' Clayton Morris has heard Apple's "in talks" with both Verizon and AT&T to provide data for the tablet.

22/1/2010: iLounge has an oddball that they've "double-confirmed": Double dock connectors, so it can be charged in both portrait and landscape mode. Making more sense, a tablet-wide plastic stripe for decent connectivity (plausible).

21/1/2010: A truckload from the WSJ: Apple "envisions that the tablet can be shared by multiple family members to read news and check email in homes" and has experimented with facial recognition through a built-in camera, along with virtual sticky notes that can be left behind. Also backing up our earlier report, the WSJ Apple's in discussions with newspaper, mag book publishers like the NYT, Conde Nast and Harper Collins, and has "exploring electronic-textbook technology". EA is apparently on tap to demo video games for it.

Also curious: The WSJ says Steve Jobs is "supportive of the old guard and [he]looks to help them by giving them new forms of distribution", referring to old media companies, which echoes a quote in the NYT that in the battle over ebook pricing with Amazon, apparently "Apple has put an offer together that helps publishers and, by extension, authors."

14/1/2010: Apple hit Gawker with a cease-and-desist letter talking about how Gawker's bounty for Tablet info is a no-no, which seems like a sorta soft confirmation there is something, since that's when Apple tends to sue people.

8/1/2010: Reuters reports that AVY Precision Technology will start producing "aluminium casings" for the tablet next month, in time for a "second quarter" launch. AluminiummMmmm.

7/1/2010: This is a really neat patent for using the screen's pixels themselves as touch sensors (instead of placing the touch layer on top of the display), leading to super thin devices.

6/1/2010: Apparently, Apple expects to sell 10 million of them this year, according to a former Google exec, though his information didn't come from Apple, so I'm not sure who's expecting what then.

4/1/2010: The WSJ again says it's shipping in March after being announced later this month (though the "ship date hasn't been finalised and could still change"), while All Things D says more specifically it's being announced on January 27. The WSJ also says it "will come with a 10 to 11-inch touch screen" that "Apple was working on two different material finishes for the device" and cites analysts who claim it will be $US1000, which might include unlimited Wi-Fi hotspot access of some kind.

Uh, What's It Called?

The iPhone was called the iPhone years before Steve Jobs ever took the stage to announce it. We don't have the luxury of such clarity here. I would think the name has no more than two syllables, personally.

Overwhelmingly what "evidence" there is points to some form of Slate. Not only did Apple register the domain iSlate.com through an intermediary to keep it a secret, they've trademarked it through a shell company called Slate Computing (signed for by Apple's Senior Trademark Specialist) and registered domains and trademarks in Europe through their usual IP law firm, utilising their standard secret trademark practices, last used with the iPhone. They've also registered "Magic Slate" through the same company. And, while we initially blew off NYT editor Bill Keller referencing an "Apple Slate" in a speech as meaningless, it's a whole lot curiouser now.

Borders referenced an "Apple iPAD" in a survey, but it sounds the sad invention of a survey copywriter who hit caps lock instead of shift, not to mention a digital feminine hygiene product. Apple also registered a trademark for TabletMac, but most likely to protect the Mac brand name from modders (it sounds unwieldy and gross).

Apple's put a lot of effort into iSlate. Is that the name of the Apple Tablet?

When's It Coming?

Well, obviously everybody who picked a day before today is wrong. Which leaves every day after today! The overall consensus is that's being announced in late January - note, though, that a lot of the people part of the new January cabal were the same people convinced it was coming in the fall.

iLounge predicted awfully specifically back in September that "Apple is currently planning to announce it on or before January 19, 2010." The Financial Times said two days ago that Apple is expected "make a major product announcement on Tuesday, January 26th" at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco, where Apple's rented a stage for "several days". Silicon Alley Insider says that Apple is going to demo a tablet in January.

Everybody from the WSJ to Apple fan sites are convinced the tablet is being announced sometime late next month, shipping 2-6 months afterward, so hype and development can be bloom, like the iPhone. (Though most of 'em were wrong three months ago.)

How Much Is It Gonna Cost?

The iPhone was $US600. Then sales stopped be a-mazing and it dropped to $US400. When the iPhone 3G came out, it to went to $US200 and everybody bought one. So, uh, how much is the tablet gonna be?

Everybody says roughly the same thing: AppleInsider has said it's "expected to retail for somewhere between the cost of a high-end iPhone and Apple's most affordable Mac notebook." Our insider told us it would "cost $US700 to $US900", or "more than twice as much as a netbook." Taiwan Economic Times says it's between $US800 and $US1000. China Times, while they got the date pegged to the price horribly wrong, said 800 US bucks. And then there's DigiTimes, who says the whole reason the tablet was "delayed" was because it was getting an OLED upgrade, so it'd be a whopping $US1500 to $US1700. The final word comes from Steve Jobs who said "we don't know how to build a sub-$US500 computer that is not a piece of junk."

Survey - and logic - says it'll be pricier than an iPhone and more expensive than a MacBook. Which doesn't say a lot. If you had to pick a number $US800ish seems like the safest bet.

How Big Is It?

The most important spec - and maybe the biggest mystery - is well, how big the tablet is. Three sizes dominate rumours, tied to the size of panels produced by Taiwanese manufacturers: seven inches, 9.6 (or 9.7) inches, and 10.6 inches.

Let's go from least to most specific. Apple reportedly told publishers it's "small enough to carry in a handbag but too big to fit in a pocket." A company discovered in its traffic logs an "unannounced Apple product with a display somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook," reported the NYT. The WSJ reported it's "smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch."

iLounge presents a unified theory of the tablet universe that would explain the multiplicity of sizes: There have been three prototypes, and the initial had a 7-inch screen, which was too small, so the latest version is 10.7 inches. Whatever the exact size, they say, it has "7x the touchable surface area".

Let's just stick with bigger than an iPhone, but smaller MacBook.

What's Inside

There's been surprisingly little discussion of the actual specs beyond the size of the screen - storage, memory, processor, etc. Most of the little talk has been about the networking capabilities, actually.

As for the processor, Intel Germany CEO passed gas about a bigger "version of the iPhone" powered by Atom. Dean Takahashi says that the tablet will be the first device using chips that Apple's designed in-house by PA Semi, the chip company Apple bought a while ago, and that they're possibly ARM-based.

Everybody pre-conceived the iPhone based on the iPod and, to a lesser extent, the Newton. Everybody was wrong. Today, most everybody is pre-conceiving the tablet based on the iPhone. Maybe we're all wrong again, or maybe the leaks are better this time.

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